


Day 1, Carving Pumpkins: A Good Bad Great Idea

by Springmagpies



Series: Promptober 2019 [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AoS Promptober, Day 1: Carving Pumpkins, earth vs space, team earth aos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Springmagpies/pseuds/Springmagpies
Summary: When Phil Coulson is forced by the corporate higher-ups at Shield Inc. to hold a team-building day for his branch, he decides to put a Halloween spin on it. However, it doesn't quite go to plan.





	Day 1, Carving Pumpkins: A Good Bad Great Idea

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to do Promptober 2019 and not let school and anxiety dictate fun times! Yay for growth. This fic is for the Day 1: Carving Pumpkins prompt. I'm a little behind on writing so bear with me as I try and catch up! Thank you so much for reading and enjoy! It is also going out as a part of Earth vs Space for Team Earth so, once again, Yay!  
P.S. This is my first time uploading as a part of tags so if I do anything wrong someone let me know and I'll fix is ASAP!  
Thanks again and enjoy!

It seemed like such a good idea, an idea Phil had actually been proud of. If he was being forced by higher-ups to make his employees come into their dingy office building on a Saturday morning for team building, he could at least put a fun holiday Halloween spin on it. Of course, no one was overly pleased with the arrangement, but it could have been worse; they could have been doing trust falls for an entire morning. However, no matter how much he had calibrated his expectations, he still didn’t expect it to go off the rails as much as it had.

It was a chilly October morning when Phil Coulson, the Regional Manager of Shield Inc.’s D.C. branch, arrived to find that his office building hadn’t turned the heat on yet. Apparently, that was a December thing. With a lack of bodies and pumped in heat, the dark room was like a fridge and Phil suddenly understood what it felt like to be a carton of milk when the appliance door closed. No one was there yet and wouldn’t be for another hour, but Phil thought it best if he came in and set up early. Turning on only the row of fluorescent lights closest to the entrance, he opened his office door and, after taking off his coat, laid down his worn work bag on the large wooden desk and pulled out a stack of old newspapers he had placed in the bag the previous night. He had known their yellowing pages would come in handy at some point. Opening the door to the conference room, Phil was smacked by another indoor chill, shivering as he flicked on the light switch and wishing he had kept his coat on. Dropping the newspaper on the table, he breathed into his hands, rubbing them together furiously to try and keep his fingernails from turning blue. 

At the sound of a bag and keys being put down on a desk, Phil turned around. The blinds that covered the windows out into the rest of the office were still closed, so he quickly stepped over and pulled the worn-out string. He smiled at the sight of his right-hand woman Melinda May, her back to him as she put her belongings down on her desk. She, however, was wise enough to keep her leather jacket and wool-knit gloves on. Phil envied their warmth, once again wishing for the warmth of his own coat. 

“Morning,” he called through the glass, his voice truly traveling out through the open door rather than through the glass. “What are you doing here so early?”

May turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing as she caught sight of the stack of newspapers. “I’m always here early and I thought you might need my help. Don’t you?” Her eyebrow raised slightly and Phil thought he saw a hint of a smile on her face.

“I really do. Help me move the table?”

“And what exactly are we doing?”

“Carving pumpkins.”

With a tiny grimace that Phil took as acceptance, May went to his office before coming in to help him roll the large conference table over to the windows. She held out his dark green coat and he took it gratefully, the corner of his lips tugging upwards. By the time they had laid down all the newspaper, put the table on top of their makeshift pumpkin-gut catcher, and carried up all the pumpkins, the morning sky had turned a lovely shade of fall grey-blue and the rest of Phil’s employees came trudging in, rubbing at their eyes and clutching cups of caffeine. 

They all absentmindedly sat at their desks, their bodies acting on some sort of muscle memory, and waited to be told what to do. 

“You know, I think this team building is working already,” Phil heard one of his younger employees, the quick-as-a-whip Fitz, whisper to his deskmate, “We all can agree that coming in on a Saturday is the absolute worst.”

“Ugh, Fitz. It will be if you have that attitude,” Fitz’s deskmate, the equally as brilliant and human ray of sunshine Jemma, replied, though she did give Fitz a sympathetic smile, handing him his steaming tea as she sat down on his desk. Phil smiled at the two as Fitz took the cup gratefully, his fingers lingering on the part of the cup where they could brush Jemma’s. Maybe May was right, perhaps the pair were secretly dating. In fact, catching the little lingering smiles the two were giving one another, they were definitely dating. Phil had to admit, May was never wrong.

“Hiya, bossman,” came the energetic voice of Daisy Johnson, one of Phil’s top salespeople. She was holding an extra cup of coffee in her hands along with her own, though he could tell by her overabundant amount of energy that she was not on her first cup. She passed him the warm mug, smiling when he took a long, savoring sip. 

He inhaled the aroma of the drink in an attempt to gain more energy from the liquid’s strong scent before lowering the rim from his mouth, “Thank you, Daisy.” 

“Anytime. Now, what’s with the pumpkins?” She jerked her thumb behind her towards the conference room. 

Phil smiled at her and took another sip of his coffee. His eyebrows raised above the rim of his glasses as he pulled the mug away. “I was just about to bring that up.” 

Phil turned to the whole of the small office floor, clearing his throat to get everyone's attention. As he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Daisy was still stood next to him, her coffee cup at her lips. He raised his eyebrows at her and she quickly dropped the mug away from her mouth, choking on her drink slightly as she raised her hand in apology and sat at her desk with a smile. 

“Alright. Since corporate is making us all come in on this Saturday morning for team building--thank you for the sarcastic whooping Hunter--I have decided to put a fun little twist on it and have you all pair up for a pumpkin carving competition. I--yes Daisy?”

Daisy swiveled in her chair, facing him head-on as she lowered her hand, “Doesn’t a competition do the opposite of team build? Doesn’t it kind of sector us off?”

“Not when you have to use teamwork to get the job done and we think of it as just a fun friendly bit of competition and not as a fight to the death, _ Bobbi _.”

Bobbi rolled her eyes good-naturedly and shot Phil a thumbs up from across the workroom. Daisy’s eyes widened skeptically as her mouth drew into a line, but she didn’t say any more. 

After getting everyone set up with their pumpkins, deciding to pick his battles and allow everyone to pick their own partner, Phil got a call from corporate checking in on the branch’s progress. However, he did ban Hunter and Bobbi from working as a team, deciding that was just asking for trouble. Everything was off to a great start but, if he had stayed in the room, perhaps he would have started to understand what Daisy had meant.

As Phil turned the corner of the doorway and went into his office, May following on his orders, the group of coworkers began digging into their pumpkins. Fitz and Jemma were fast at getting their pumpkin open, even though it wasn’t a race, and this caused Daisy to rush hers and Lincoln’s lid. Hunter had somewhat given up and just sort of cheered Mack on as he cut into the top of their orange behemoth. No one had any idea what exactly Davis was doing as he accidentally got the knife stuck in the side of his and his Piper’s pumpkin, not even Piper herself, who just sort of stood there with her face in her hands. 

Fitz and Jemma had opened their pumpkin from the bottom, Jemma having assured it was the better way to clear out the inside of the shell. At a somewhat sticky spot of the pumpkin, however, Fitz ended up removing the bit of squash guts a little too forcefully, the squishy insides flinging across the conference table and smacking Daisy on the nose. 

Daisy halted, along with the rest of the room, as she slowly tried to process what had happened, her hands frozen in midair covered with a slight orange film. Fitz, meanwhile, tried to apologize without laughing outright, his top lip tucked under his front teeth. 

“Ah, ho. Alright…” Daisy scoffed, slowly wiping the gunk off her face, “I see how you want to play.” Reaching into her pumpkin, she pulled out a fist-full of orange seedy slime, the substance squelching as her fist tightened. She gave Fitz a little smile before flicking her wrist and opening her palm. He ducked and the substance hit a passing Mack, who had stopped on his way to the paper towels behind the younger man after the first projectile had accidentally been launched. 

Daisy’s hands flew to her mouth as the substance stuck to Mack’s grey shirt, but before she could utter a genuine “I’m sorry,” Mack had pulled the gunk off from off his chest and thrown it at its original target, the slime bleeding into the curls on the back of Fitz’s head.

And they were off to the races.

Back in his office, Phil stood with the black plastic phone to his ear, nodding his head as his boss listed out what goals he should be reaching.

“Yes, Maria. Yes--I know--everything is going great. They all seem to like my idea and are getting along great.”

Right as he had gotten out the final words, there was a thwap on the wall connecting his office and the conference room. Phil and May both looked at the wall and back at each other, May giving him a slightly subdued but burning “you had to say something” face. 

Shouts came from the room over and there were a few more sounds of something hitting the adjoining wall. “Yeah, Maria. Everything’s great! Oh, someone just walked into my office with a question, call you back.” Phil quickly hung up the phone, his smile slipping as he ran out the office door, May walking calmly behind him.

Just as he rounded into the room, he was taken aback by a glob of pumpkin guts hitting him squarely in the chest. The room froze mid-chaos. If he hadn’t been the boss, he might have actually laughed out loud at the sight. There was not a single thing in the room not covered in pumpkin, including the people. By the looks of it, Davis seemed to be the worst off, a large snake of orange still perched on his shoulders and a seed dried to his forehead. But he was only the most covered by a small margin. The walls were decorated with bits of pumpkin and the conference table was littered with the orange insides. And he had been so proud of the bowl ‘nd newspaper system. 

“What in the hell is going on?” Phil’s voice cut across the pumpkin-tasting air. The only answer was the squelching thud of pumpkin guts unsticking themselves from the dingy brown walls. Phil sighed at the look of dejected on the pumpkin-laced faces, feeling rather like a mood killer. Sometimes being in charge really sucked. 

“I need all of you to clean this up. Come get me when your done and we’ll start doing those trust falls or pass a ball around or something.”

The moment he turned his back, the room started to move again, tentatively but quickly. He heard a few muttered apologies and it did nothing to alleviate his bad-guy feelings. For the next hour and a half, he sat in his office, talking to corporate and lying through his teeth about their progress. When he finally got off the phone, he began fiddling with a paperclip as May stood in front of the door with her arms crossed.

“I thought that it would go over better,” he said after a few moments, placing his finished paperclip sculpture among the rest and picking up another bent piece of stainless steel wire. 

One of May’s eyebrows arched. “Who said it didn’t go well?”

“The pumpkin smell that will now be infesting our building for the next hundred or so days. We’ll probably be breathing in pumpkin patch until Christmas.”

She nodded slightly but her resolve didn’t diminish. “I think you should have more faith in them. By the way, they got the conference room cleaned about an hour ago.”

“What? Why didn’t they come and get me?” Phil asked, the paperclip in his hand flying out to his left with his gesture. May went and picked it up, placing it on his desk with a little smirk. 

“They’ve got a surprise for you.”

Phil stood up from his desk, giving May a curious glance as he once again rounded into the conference room. His employees were all gathered around a singular pumpkin, the largest one that Hunter and Mack had been working on. There were pieces of yellow notepaper covered in sketches on the wiped off conference table and Phil noticed a few hanging on the walls all around the freshly cleaned, pumpkin smelling room. They had tally marks by them, as if they had voted on them.

Fitz was standing closest to the pumpkin with Jemma’s hand on his shoulder. She was smiling brightly at him while the rest looked at the large orange squash with wide grins on their faces.

“Who knew Fitz was so good at pumpkin carving. If this was still a competition, I'd be pissed,” he overheard Daisy say.

“Thought I’d make it a surprise. Besides, Jemma did the winning design,” Fitz said, grasping Jemma’s hand from off his shoulder and squeezing it, dropping it as every eyebrow in the room arched slightly. 

“Well you did the amazing carving,” Jemma replied.

“Well I did part of the amazing voting,” Hunter added from across the conference table. He was lucky all the pumpkin guts had been cleaned away or it would have been coming at him from all sides.

Phil stood in the doorway, May at his shoulder. Since no one was looking, she even smiled behind his back.

“What’s all this?” Phil asked, smirking when every one of his employees jumped at the same time, some having to turn to see him. 

“We owe you an apology,” Daisy started, her eyes somewhat downcast. “And we also really didn’t want to do one of those trust fall things. Soooo,” she gestured to Fitz who turned the pumpkin around as everyone else in the room drum rolled on a surface. Phil’s breath hitched in his throat and, for some reason, he felt tears prick his eyes. On the side of the pumpkin was an intricate and well-carved version of their company logo, the skin of the pumpkin carved away so that light could come through but completely carved out, allowing for more detail. 

“The rest of the pumpkins have all our names on them,” Mack added, gesturing to the smaller pumpkins lining the wall.

“That way we can put them on our desk groups,” Hunter finished.

Phil didn’t say anything, but he didn’t really need to. May pushed him a little further into the room and he moved with the shove, continuing forward to inspect the largest pumpkin more closely.

Staring at the most perfect pumpkin he had ever seen, Phil was very grateful he had gone against corporate, even if it meant they would be smelling pumpkin guts for the rest of the year. It was definitely worth it. 


End file.
